Wistron Chairman Gets It

According to Digitimes, Simon Lin held forth:“In the past 10 years, the development of the PC industry has had very weak progress because PC players have relied only on Wintel, failing to create their own value. Apple’s products have already shown that the PC industry can no longer solely depend on technology advances, but will also need to understand and satisfy consumers’ needs.”via Taiwan PC industry at a critical moment: An interview with Wistron chairman.

Amen. Relying on M$ to tell manufacturers what consumers want is killing the industry. Otherwise they would have moved to ARM and */Linux a decade ago. Further, allowing M$ to have huge margins while manufacturers scraped by was a huge mistake. It just made M$ more powerful. There was no need for any of that. Hindsight is 20-20 now.

A decade ago PIIIish machines were plentiful. GNU/Linux thrived on them and the price of hardware continued a steady decline further squeezing margins for everyone except M$ and Intel. Wintel got into that position illegally but the governments blinked. The only solution was to get away from Wintel. They see that now. Android/Linux on smart thingies and iOS on Apple’s stuff showed that was a viable solution. Manufacturers took payments from Intel and M$ to avoid AMD and GNU/Linux and Wintel had it all sewn up. That was short-sighted. The cost is a much bigger problem diversifying now that the market has redoubled a couple of times and smart thingies are growing at huge rates and the legacy PC manufacturers face stagnation.

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About Robert Pogson

I am a retired teacher in Canada. I taught in the subject areas where I have worked for almost forty years: maths, physics, chemistry and computers. I love hunting, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, too.

Robert Pogson wrote: “Manufacturers took payments from Intel and M$ to avoid AMD and GNU/Linux and Wintel had it all sewn up. That was short-sighted.”

That is what it sure looks like happened but few people will come out and openly say it. It should be obvious to company directors who have any integrity at all that nobody who pays your company to avoid their competitor’s products has your interests in mind.

Company boards should note the above. Also, although there may be a relatively small payment to the company itself, you can bet if some of your directors are pursuing these ‘strategies’ they are taking bribes themselves.

This is, of course, the problem with management that does not itself own a significant percentage of the company’s shares. They are much more easily induced to accept bribes from outside parties. This is one reason that corruption is rife in virtually all para-state organisations (i.e. semi-privatized or state owned enterprises) compared to private industry.
It is difficult to convince the owners of a private business to shaft themselves!

The situation today with respect to Microsoft and Intel is that Microsoft has not changed its strategy and Intel has seen the error of its past ways. Unfortunately now it seems that AMD is in bed with Microsoft since new motherboards that run Linux and accept AMD processors are no longer available. Intel, on the other hand, make Linux friendly motherboards and bare bones machines, desktop (NUCs) and servers, available directly to OEMs and even determined consumers.

“WiNE is the laughing-stock of the Linux world, let alone of the more general IT world.”

YOU are the “laughing-stock of the Linux world”. You wouldn’t have a clue about the rest of the “more general IT world” being the complete tool that you are.

Wine works quite well for what it is meant to do. Over the years I have seen steady improvement in it. The apps it does run work fine. They just keep chipping away at the rest and eventually more of those will run as well.

Dr Loser
–Try Windows Virtual PC to get a proper XP emulation environment. Or try VirtualBox and FreeDos.–
Please do. There is a reason why dosbox is used instead of Virtualbox with Freedos and why XP in Windows Virtual PC is problematic. Same issue.

Performance is crap. Wine and Dosbox for what they are doing is related. Form of paravirtualisation. Don’t follow what windows or dos did when it was called to the hardware layer divert off as soon as possible to the OS it is running on.
Virtualbox and Windows Virtual PC looks like this.

Application->[dos/windows api call]->[hardware emulation/paravirtualisation driver][VM escape][host OS/hardware]
What dosbox/wine looks like.
[Application]->[dos/windows api call]->[VM escape if VM had to be used. So might not be present]->[host OS/hardware]
There is a lot of advantage to avoiding hardware emulation or paravirtualisation drivers. Of course there is risks.

–WiNE is the laughing-stock of the Linux world, let alone of the more general IT world. The very last thing I would advocate anybody using is WiNE.–

Sorry Wine is used. It solves particular problems very well. Yes wine is not like a virtual machine. Some applications run faster in wine than on direct hardware with Windows or Windows in a virtual machine. Basically when wine works it can work insanely well. Wine it does not its a complete ass.

–You could be right about Windows 8, though. I have no clue about 16-bit support in Windows 8. But again, the question presents itself: is this a real-life use case?–
People who like playing old games for one. Yes a lot of old 9x games depend on 16 bit copy-protecting parts even if the rest of game is 32 bit. So lot of stuff released up until 2002 breaks without 16 bit support.

Dr Loser you are far too much MS for your own good. I would basically never recommend virtual machining freedos as first option. Its always dosbox first because its performance is way better and its program support of dosbox is way better because it provides more historic hardware hooks than modern day virtual machines.

Yes Windows 3.11 running in dosbox is faster than Windows 3.11 running in Virtualbox or Windows Virtual PC. Its also getting to the point dosbox can strip dos out from under Windows 9x based OS’s as well.

So some point in the future running Windows 9x in a MS Virtual PC or Virtual Box will be stupidity as well. Too long of distance in calls to get to host OS/hardware compared to using dosbox.

Dr Loser basically there is a point were wine and dosbox make it pointless to run anything else because you have shot your performance.

I can’t really believe I’m bothering with this (or that anybody who has a desperate need for 20-year old Windows programs doesn’t just stick with XP), but you’re wrong, oiaohm, at least on Windows 7.

Try Windows Virtual PC to get a proper XP emulation environment. Or try VirtualBox and FreeDos.

But you just had to bring up your favourite bit of junkware, didn’t you? WiNE is the laughing-stock of the Linux world, let alone of the more general IT world. The very last thing I would advocate anybody using is WiNE.

You could be right about Windows 8, though. I have no clue about 16-bit support in Windows 8. But again, the question presents itself: is this a real-life use case?

–And even today one can run age-old programs (DOS / Windows 3.1) from eras long gone on Windows 7/8 without a hitch.– So I would call this stretching things. Der Balrog. You are of course forgetting 64 bit 7 and 8 cannot run 16 bit applications. Could get away with this line in the time of XP. Majority of Windows 7 and 8 default installs are 64 bit.

Wine can still turn over win16 bit applications on Linux 64 bit. This is a difference in Linux favour not Windows.

So you read an article, your eyes darted towards the word ‘Wintel’, and you were ready to say: ‘Amen!’

Can you please explain how PC makers are to transform?

Lin doesn’t say. And neither do you. Your only recipe is: ‘Put Linux on everything, and all your worries will go away!’

For example, wouldn’t this transformation (whatever it is) lead to every PC maker rolling out their own OS (whatever it’s based on)? Because if you want to integrate vertically you’d have to have some control over the OS, too. After all, Apple IS the role model according to Lin.

You’re in a state of perpetual ignorance about the fact that Wintel’s success was not least due to the same OS running everywhere. And even today one can run age-old programs (DOS / Windows 3.1) from eras long gone on Windows 7/8 without a hitch. If that’s no success, then I don’t know what is.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.